The classical music thread

Btw what I like in the Haitink is the ‘prat’. It’s very on the beat and fast. I like especially the b-side, part 3 and 4.

47 times cheaper for Haitink :slight_smile:

Best Bruckner 4th I’ve come across is Klemperer/Philharmonia. I’ve not yet been lucky with it on Vinyl despite buying 3 different copies/reissues, but this CD (rip) is sensational.

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Curious to hear your thoughts on Danny’s. It’s an awful lot of money for just one score. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Another excellent Bruckner 4 (whole cycle actually) is Karajan/Berliner on DG from the 70s/80s. The Original Source series is reissuing the whole cycle on 17-LPs in August. They are taking what they learned about mastering directly from the quad 4-track tapes to remaster these from the 8-track tapes. Symphonies 1-3 were digitally recorded and they are mastering directly from those multitrack tapes too.

I have that Karajan set on pre-order.

Karajan was a strange conductor, who allowed himself to become fixated by a glossy ‘sheen’ on his orchestra’s sound. Generally, the earlier the recording was made in his long career, the better - he recorded the Beethoven symphonies five times, and it’s almost true to say that, each time, the performance captured in the recording got worse than its predecessor.

His Puccini opera recordings, though, are all wonderful - the sound quality of his late Decca recordings of La Bohème (Berlin PO) and Madama Butterfly (Vienna PO) are quite sensational.

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Il Tabarro is one of Puccini’s finest operas, and has been quite succesful on records. This one, from a few years ago, received decidedly ‘meh’ reviews, mostly focusing on it being too well behaved, but it really is a very listenable edition. Of the three lead singers, Brian Jagde impresses with a powerfully sung Luigi. Both Melody Moore and Lester Lynch are better here than in their earlier recordings for Pentatone but both their voices are a bit colourless. I like Janowski’s low key but melodic approach. The sound quality is spectacular, easily some of the best sound I’ve ever heard from an opera recording.

Cheers
EJ

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I am playing the new DG Classics version of Bohm/VPO Beethoven 6 from The Original Source series.

This is really quite impressive and wonderful in every way. The remaster is stunning.

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I posted here about this Böhm Beethoven record six days ago. It is a masterful performance, recorded in a vintage period for DG in Vienna, when some other great Beethoven symphony readings were also captured on tape, notably Carlos Kleiber’s Fifth (1975) and Seventh (1976).

Leonard Bernstein’s complete Beethoven symphonies, recorded largely ‘live’ would follow shortly afterwards, plus his Vienna PO recording of ‘Fidelio’.

Karl Böhm’s last ever recording - Beethoven’s mighty Ninth Symphony, with his ‘dream team’ of soloists, Jessye Norman, Brigitte Fassbaender, Placido Domingo and Walter Berry, was recorded with the Vienna PO a couple of years later, in November 1990.

Böhm died at his home in Salzburg on 14 August 1981.

Amazing - he conducted it from the grave!!

:grin:

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Yes, that would have been pretty amazing - the Beethoven Ninth was recorded in November 1980!

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I have often listened to that Beethoven on Qobuz. Apparently, DG later paired that symphony with the Schubert Symphony No. 5. It’s not a vinyl reissue, of course, but it still sounds great!

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The vinyl reissue sounds much, much better. It’s mastered directly from the original 4-track tape, which was never done before. The performance is wonderful in any case.

…and all analogue?

Yes, you should really read about the series. It’s quite remarkable, and was inspired by the success of the Blue Note Tone Poet series. https://www.the-original-source.com

So far they are not reissuing my favourite performances for me to pony up 70 Euro. But If there are coming up with some performances I like, for sure I will check them out.

What kinds of things would you like to see?

Karajan’s complete Bruckner cycle is next. I don’t know what’s coming after, but I have heard some Pollini solo piano is in the works.

Kempff’s Beethoven PIano Concerto series with Leitner would be nice. ( esp. his No.1 ) I will be all over it! :heart_eyes:
md21879467959

Those are from the 60s, so they aren’t even possible as candidates for this series.

Sorry, but I think you don’t really understand the premise of this series. Did you read the info I linked above? It’s all about using the 70s quad (4-track) 1/2" tapes and mastering directly from them. The OGs were all mastered and cut from 2-channel 1/4" copy tapes. No releases have ever been mastered and cut from these tapes before, without an intermediate copy tape. Anything from the 60s is out of scope for this reissue series, because DG didn’t record in quad to 1/2" 4-track before 1970.

Seriously, it’s worth reading what DG has to say about the series. It really is quite remarkable.